While I haven't changed plans in a while, in the US I don't remember texting being "free" or included on most plans. Oh, we also tend to pay to receive texts too.
A large amount of states these days have very different drinking laws than what people think. Basically everyone knows you can't purchase alcohol under the age of 21 (some places minor purchase isn't illegal but possession is so purchase basically is). What a lot of people don't know is that possession and consumption laws with regards to alcohol and minors (or at least people under the age of 21) are a lot different. For possession a good number of states have family, parental, and/or private property/home/residence exceptions for minors. I'm pretty sure a decent majority have such exceptions for consumption.
Either way a school's right to punish for such activities is definitely immoral in my opinion. Saying it's ok for a school to suspend extracurricular activities (which build good character) could open the door to eventually suspending kids from school for something that is truly a parenting problem. And i'm of the belief that suspending kids from school (unless they're doing something disruptive/harmful to the learning environment) hurts the kid more than it helps.
I'd rather an organization that makes it very hard to get a new TLD than one that creates a new TLD just because someone asked/bribed/etc. And the old white men comment is just cliche and potentially false. I know for a fact they have quite a few international members who have a large part in decision making.
If you look at some of the stuff they're currently proposing (Internationalized Domain Names [IDN]) that would allow for native language domains (non-ASCII aka unicode) then you might change your mind. Of course it could just be all talk and they could terribly screw up the implementation or create huge security problems.
And screw large corporations. I just don't want to have to memorize three thousand TLDs because everyone wants a new one for their little specific topic so they can get that certain domain name they always wanted.
If it's such a big problem the nations that don't like how the US-run internet works can always just seperate from the network and create their own network (or at least threaten to).
Though I doubt anyone has the balls. Personally ICANN/IANA does a pretty good job at what it does, and the FCC seems to only step in extremely rarely (if at all). And I promise you that a large majority of nations, if not every nation, intercept/store/decode internet information. Changing who 'owns' the internet would not change that at all. It would just potentially change who gets what IP blocks (alot of businesses would be pretty upset if this changed), what TLDs are official and valid (and nothing stops a nation from having their own ISP's DNS servers adding TLDs), and I guess some protocol stuff.
The US may do some terrible things but with regards to the internet it's policy is typically 'do not regulate if possibly'. Unless that changes this is all just a bunch of moaning to stur up anti-american sentiments.
And I wouldn't be surprised if google was fine with that.
Most people would still use google in a new unlocked-browser, and google probably isn't too worried about a small niche of tech savvy people using an application (unless they screw up the initial browser the majority of users are going to use the original one aka MSIE vs netscape and friends)
While atomic bombs and biological weapons are 'terrible', in terms of overall damage and pain/suffering they don't compare to conventional explosives (which no calls inhumane). And in terms of nuclear technology, I imagine the nuclear research was easily worth the terrible cost in lives (an invasion of japan/extended war would likely have had many more casualties and affected lives) and will eventually touch more lives in a positive fashion (if it hasn't already) through the gains to society. Biological weapons have historically just been useful as a scare tactic, when used they do horrible things to the people they do affect but arn't really viable weapons even if they didn't have terrible side effects (problems with dispersal, keeping it from affecting your own people/troops/etc). I would also imagine a ton of research could have been banned to prevent biological weapons from ever being created. I also imagine far more people would have died from disease/hunger/etc due to whatever positive creation came to light before someone decided the knowledge could be abused.
Researching anything for almost any use is fine in my book. Creating things from gained knowledge for the sole purpose of Evil(TM) is bad. Stunting research for fear of such Evil(TM) is almost just as bad. As a species if we're going to survive in a geographic time scale, we're going to need to learn alot more. To make a nice random equality, it's like giving up our freedoms in fear that someone might abuse them to hurt us. Is the possibility of far less than a percent of the population suffering something they shouldn't have to worth 100% of the population suffering something different?
Quite frequently senators who are supposed to be asking questions make a bunch of general statements, and then never ask or possibly ask a question. They frequently go over time as well. I think there was a case in point recently of a certain female California senator with regards to General Petraeus. Hell, people do it on live television interviews all the time as well. They don't get as unrefined as this kid did and the kid was obviously being a jackass but i'm pretty sure the situation was handled incorrectly. They wouldn't have physically restained a senator and then tried to drag him out of the capitol building.
I'm pretty sure the whole reason ATI is in the mess of being regarded as having crappy linux drivers is because they've released crappy linux drivers. I'd be fine with them releasing some sort of 'beta' driver to help appease people with currently unsupported hardware but they should not put out a real release until it's tested and working properly.
And in my opinion the only other thing I would request out of them until that time is silence on the matter.
The slashdot poll on this subject should be a pretty good indication that there is a majority of lefty nerds. There's a good number of conservatives too though.
I was in a public dedicated gifted program growing up, meaning it was only gifted kids in most of my classes (pretty much the only exception being classes like gym/health). In the midst of that situation in Baton Rouge, LA we had some desegregation cosent decree nonsense. To qualify for gifted you had to pass different IQ tests among other things that I think are total bullshit, but for whatever reason it ended up that most of the gifted kids were classified as 'non-black'. The school board took the opportunity to use the gifted program to 'desegregate' and raise test scores at schools in areas that had low scores and coincedentally very high poor majority black populations. Hell, we even had the same school as the disabled sometimes (they tended to be non-black too for some reason).
Anyway to get to the point kids clashed as much with the different groups as they did with their own. The younger groups probably had more inter-group clashing. As the groups got older, in my experience, they got along better. It was some of the best and scariest experiences of my life. In middle school I had a kid hold a screwdriver to my neck and threaten to kill me. In high school I knew kids who lived in terrible situations but they were the nicest people I had ever met. I never saw anyone judge anyone else because they took 'smart' people classes. We still mostly stuck to our groups because those were the people we spent the most time with...but there was definitely friendly social interaction between groups. There's always clashes, but academic brain power does not the define the kind of person someone is. You can be an idiot and be the nicest person in the world, or a genius and be a total asshole. And yes, we can cater to the top 5% and the other 95% at the same time. Parents in their school system just have to show they care and fight for their kids wherever they fit in (school boards are scared of groups of parents, it's funny, use that).
Oh and developmentally disabled people need that money dammit. They typically need nurses and extreme one-on-one development to even have a chance at life. Don't compare spending amounts, it's rude and inconsiderate.
The Ubuntu promo has nothing to do with operating system, browser, or user agent (well for the most part).
If you look at the page source you'll see they have a javascript array of urls, one of which always includes the Ubuntu promo link/image. These arrays are all sent to their 'montage' function which is supposed to cycle through the different promos (open the dell home page in IE and you'll see the desired function in action).
In Firefox 1.5.x for whatever reason (they have too many errors for me to even bother trying to track it down) the page will load the first random image which could possibly be the Ubuntu one. This is why you have to usually reload the page to get it. However, if you have NoScript enabled (or javascript disabled, take your pick) you will never see the Ubuntu promo as you will always get the default image.
So Dell did put an advertisement for Linux on their front page, and if they purposefully targeted anyone it was IE users, the people least likely to be informed about Linux.
I seriously doubt that. That would then mean that most people you know in that age group are already serving, veterans, or are in law enforcement/protection. I don't know about you, but out of all the people I know I would say that less than 10%, more likely less than 5%, fall into those categories.
So even if you increase that 10 fold, that's nowhere near 'most' of that age group. I can very well say that 'most' of that age group can be concerned about a draft.
Let me think. Acer I do believe sells a comparable laptop using the same chasis. They don't appear to be hurting buisness wise.
Alienware sells a comparable laptop using the same chasis + a custom lid. They definitely arn't hurting buisness wise.
I in fact bought one such laptop, mostly because I had the spare money and could, but also because I travel between two cities alot (my hometown and where I go to college).
I don't like unplugging all my desktop stuff (and I prefer leaving my desktops always on) and having to lug it back it forth. I'm also a geek and a gamer. I want to be able to play battlefield 2 perfectly wherever I am before bed.
I also have a couple of friends who have bought such laptops because that's what they wanted: they wanted a more slim/portable machine that was also as powerful as most desktops.
I don't use such a laptop for long battery life. Nor does anyone else I know. But the battery is still useful! Ever try moving your desktop from your living room to your bedroom then back 5 times fast? Or using your desktop from the sofa while watching TV? Yeah.
Also, my laptop in that chasis isn't that heavy and i'm quite a small person, so that's really no big deal. Sure I wouldn't want to carry it around all day, but it's NOT that kind of laptop.
Lastly, the bottom ventilation I find to be pretty important. Putting these laptops on a flat hard surface (read: no cloth!) greatly reduces heat and strain on the fans. There is a very small air path underneath it that is amazingly important. I also find I CAN put it on a cloth surface without serious heat problems if i put a cold/heat (you know, one of those gel packs, it need not be cold though) right underneath the graphics card area.
Having room for two hard drives with a SATA/raid controller, two optical drives, and four SODIMM (read: RAM) slots in my beast is just a nice plus too.
Oh yeah (sorry for the rambling, it's early). There ARE some serious downsides to this specific chasis that seems so popular. First it's plain ugly and the component layout is near retarded (most ports on mine plug in...upside down!). It just screams cheap high production taiwanese product. Most importantly, and something I find many laptops lack, is a good power connecter. There have been multiple reported problems both on the motherboard and adapter plug itself from most vendors who use this chasis (so it appears they mostly use the same power adapter too). Also the fans working with most of the heat are right by the power connection. Well this baby will put out some pretty hot air. Hot enough that it probably does some serious damage to your sperm count. Combine that with plastic cable and wire and possible laptop movement moving the wire around more to get a situation asking for the cable to die a slow and painful death.
With better thought and design put into the product, I could see such laptops being used alot more frequently. As it is I doubt many owners of one will buy another anytime soon and not just because of the large price tag. If you pay alot of money for a product, you expect everything to be near perfect (read: like a mac) and I have yet to see a laptop using this chasis be just that.
I believe the point of these widget development/runtime engines is to provide a method of developing/deploying simple easy-to-create applications. With a stressing on "easy to create".
Instead of having to write alot of C/C++ or Java code and worry about compatibility and lots of other issues, you can just (from my understanding) follow a method the engine outlines (in this case I believe primarily XML, maybe some javascript) and create a small very specific desktop application.
I rarely need to use a phone at all, and when I do, it's almost always on nights or weekends. For me a phone is only for emergencies (car break down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere?), buisness (server down at 4am? someone calls my cell to wake me up), and occasionally pleasure calls (calling people who don't know how to use a computer).
Thus two options have worked fine for me a) pre-paid in the past b) now I just had myself added to one of my relatives plans as an 'extra' family line. which is only like $5-10/month.
Then add how time is money. A cell phone means you get your calls when you need to get them, as the phone can always be with you. A landline is stuck in one place. If my server goes down and I had a landline and someone just left a message I might not get that message for another 8 hours! That's alot of money and unacceptable downtime.
Most college students I know only have cell phones or no phone at all (the latter being quite rare).
I know very few college students with a landline phone.
Now I do agree with the south not having alot of other options. Bellsouth is the defacto standard phone company if you want a landline down here. I mean sure, there are some other options, but who in the south is willing to pay a good bit more just to get away from one company? Not many.
what about bloggers and review sites and not entirely porn related sites that occasionally have links to or actual nude/pornographic images.
what about nudist webpages?
what about nude photography art?
'Sir, this is the FBI. You recently posted to foo.bloggerbar.com a pornographic image of your new baby boy. Because you posted this horrible pornographic image, I am sorry but we have no chance but to confiscate all evidence, including your child. Thanks for your cooperation in this matter of National Security in our efforts to Save the Children of Tomorrow.'
News doesn't have to be 'new information' as in 'never happened or reported before'. It can also just be a recent event/happening.
The story is perhaps everywhere because people can relate to it and are glad to see someone trying to strike back and want to help? Which is something worse all together because it means this is happening to A LOT of people.
Did you complain when you saw some dude strike back at a spammer? I doubt it, you probably applauded.
And no, I don't think your karma is going to explode unless some moderater nazis decide to just be rude!
Slashdot Mirror
While I haven't changed plans in a while, in the US I don't remember texting being "free" or included on most plans. Oh, we also tend to pay to receive texts too.
It's a 85% ethanol/gasoline mixture fuel.
A large amount of states these days have very different drinking laws than what people think. Basically everyone knows you can't purchase alcohol under the age of 21 (some places minor purchase isn't illegal but possession is so purchase basically is). What a lot of people don't know is that possession and consumption laws with regards to alcohol and minors (or at least people under the age of 21) are a lot different. For possession a good number of states have family, parental, and/or private property/home/residence exceptions for minors. I'm pretty sure a decent majority have such exceptions for consumption.
Either way a school's right to punish for such activities is definitely immoral in my opinion. Saying it's ok for a school to suspend extracurricular activities (which build good character) could open the door to eventually suspending kids from school for something that is truly a parenting problem. And i'm of the belief that suspending kids from school (unless they're doing something disruptive/harmful to the learning environment) hurts the kid more than it helps.
Want to know the laws in your state? There's a lot of good information on the nih website
http://alcoholpolicy.niaaa.nih.gov/stateprofiles/index.asp
I'd rather an organization that makes it very hard to get a new TLD than one that creates a new TLD just because someone asked/bribed/etc. And the old white men comment is just cliche and potentially false. I know for a fact they have quite a few international members who have a large part in decision making.
If you look at some of the stuff they're currently proposing (Internationalized Domain Names [IDN]) that would allow for native language domains (non-ASCII aka unicode) then you might change your mind. Of course it could just be all talk and they could terribly screw up the implementation or create huge security problems.
And screw large corporations. I just don't want to have to memorize three thousand TLDs because everyone wants a new one for their little specific topic so they can get that certain domain name they always wanted.
If it's such a big problem the nations that don't like how the US-run internet works can always just seperate from the network and create their own network (or at least threaten to).
Though I doubt anyone has the balls. Personally ICANN/IANA does a pretty good job at what it does, and the FCC seems to only step in extremely rarely (if at all). And I promise you that a large majority of nations, if not every nation, intercept/store/decode internet information. Changing who 'owns' the internet would not change that at all. It would just potentially change who gets what IP blocks (alot of businesses would be pretty upset if this changed), what TLDs are official and valid (and nothing stops a nation from having their own ISP's DNS servers adding TLDs), and I guess some protocol stuff.
The US may do some terrible things but with regards to the internet it's policy is typically 'do not regulate if possibly'. Unless that changes this is all just a bunch of moaning to stur up anti-american sentiments.
And I wouldn't be surprised if google was fine with that.
Most people would still use google in a new unlocked-browser, and google probably isn't too worried about a small niche of tech savvy people using an application (unless they screw up the initial browser the majority of users are going to use the original one aka MSIE vs netscape and friends)
While atomic bombs and biological weapons are 'terrible', in terms of overall damage and pain/suffering they don't compare to conventional explosives (which no calls inhumane). And in terms of nuclear technology, I imagine the nuclear research was easily worth the terrible cost in lives (an invasion of japan/extended war would likely have had many more casualties and affected lives) and will eventually touch more lives in a positive fashion (if it hasn't already) through the gains to society. Biological weapons have historically just been useful as a scare tactic, when used they do horrible things to the people they do affect but arn't really viable weapons even if they didn't have terrible side effects (problems with dispersal, keeping it from affecting your own people/troops/etc). I would also imagine a ton of research could have been banned to prevent biological weapons from ever being created. I also imagine far more people would have died from disease/hunger/etc due to whatever positive creation came to light before someone decided the knowledge could be abused.
Researching anything for almost any use is fine in my book. Creating things from gained knowledge for the sole purpose of Evil(TM) is bad. Stunting research for fear of such Evil(TM) is almost just as bad. As a species if we're going to survive in a geographic time scale, we're going to need to learn alot more. To make a nice random equality, it's like giving up our freedoms in fear that someone might abuse them to hurt us. Is the possibility of far less than a percent of the population suffering something they shouldn't have to worth 100% of the population suffering something different?
Quite frequently senators who are supposed to be asking questions make a bunch of general statements, and then never ask or possibly ask a question. They frequently go over time as well. I think there was a case in point recently of a certain female California senator with regards to General Petraeus. Hell, people do it on live television interviews all the time as well. They don't get as unrefined as this kid did and the kid was obviously being a jackass but i'm pretty sure the situation was handled incorrectly. They wouldn't have physically restained a senator and then tried to drag him out of the capitol building.
I'm pretty sure the whole reason ATI is in the mess of being regarded as having crappy linux drivers is because they've released crappy linux drivers. I'd be fine with them releasing some sort of 'beta' driver to help appease people with currently unsupported hardware but they should not put out a real release until it's tested and working properly.
And in my opinion the only other thing I would request out of them until that time is silence on the matter.
The slashdot poll on this subject should be a pretty good indication that there is a majority of lefty nerds. There's a good number of conservatives too though.
We need a firefox plugin to do it automatically...
I was in a public dedicated gifted program growing up, meaning it was only gifted kids in most of my classes (pretty much the only exception being classes like gym/health). In the midst of that situation in Baton Rouge, LA we had some desegregation cosent decree nonsense. To qualify for gifted you had to pass different IQ tests among other things that I think are total bullshit, but for whatever reason it ended up that most of the gifted kids were classified as 'non-black'. The school board took the opportunity to use the gifted program to 'desegregate' and raise test scores at schools in areas that had low scores and coincedentally very high poor majority black populations. Hell, we even had the same school as the disabled sometimes (they tended to be non-black too for some reason).
Anyway to get to the point kids clashed as much with the different groups as they did with their own. The younger groups probably had more inter-group clashing. As the groups got older, in my experience, they got along better. It was some of the best and scariest experiences of my life. In middle school I had a kid hold a screwdriver to my neck and threaten to kill me. In high school I knew kids who lived in terrible situations but they were the nicest people I had ever met. I never saw anyone judge anyone else because they took 'smart' people classes. We still mostly stuck to our groups because those were the people we spent the most time with...but there was definitely friendly social interaction between groups. There's always clashes, but academic brain power does not the define the kind of person someone is. You can be an idiot and be the nicest person in the world, or a genius and be a total asshole. And yes, we can cater to the top 5% and the other 95% at the same time. Parents in their school system just have to show they care and fight for their kids wherever they fit in (school boards are scared of groups of parents, it's funny, use that).
Oh and developmentally disabled people need that money dammit. They typically need nurses and extreme one-on-one development to even have a chance at life. Don't compare spending amounts, it's rude and inconsiderate.
Need a roommate?
The Ubuntu promo has nothing to do with operating system, browser, or user agent (well for the most part).
If you look at the page source you'll see they have a javascript array of urls, one of which always includes the Ubuntu promo link/image. These arrays are all sent to their 'montage' function which is supposed to cycle through the different promos (open the dell home page in IE and you'll see the desired function in action).
In Firefox 1.5.x for whatever reason (they have too many errors for me to even bother trying to track it down) the page will load the first random image which could possibly be the Ubuntu one. This is why you have to usually reload the page to get it. However, if you have NoScript enabled (or javascript disabled, take your pick) you will never see the Ubuntu promo as you will always get the default image.
So Dell did put an advertisement for Linux on their front page, and if they purposefully targeted anyone it was IE users, the people least likely to be informed about Linux.
I seriously doubt that. That would then mean that most people you know in that age group are already serving, veterans, or are in law enforcement/protection. I don't know about you, but out of all the people I know I would say that less than 10%, more likely less than 5%, fall into those categories.
s /us.html
0 Army%20Profile.pdf
Now for some numbers!
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo
Manpower available for military service: males age 18-49: 67,742,879 (Fit: males age 18-49: 54,609,050)
http://www.armyg1.army.mil/hr/demographics/FY05%2
Total Army Strength: About 1 million
So even if you increase that 10 fold, that's nowhere near 'most' of that age group. I can very well say that 'most' of that age group can be concerned about a draft.
I wish I had mod points =(
Let me think. Acer I do believe sells a comparable laptop using the same chasis. They don't appear to be hurting buisness wise.
Alienware sells a comparable laptop using the same chasis + a custom lid. They definitely arn't hurting buisness wise.
I in fact bought one such laptop, mostly because I had the spare money and could, but also because I travel between two cities alot (my hometown and where I go to college).
I don't like unplugging all my desktop stuff (and I prefer leaving my desktops always on) and having to lug it back it forth. I'm also a geek and a gamer. I want to be able to play battlefield 2 perfectly wherever I am before bed.
I also have a couple of friends who have bought such laptops because that's what they wanted: they wanted a more slim/portable machine that was also as powerful as most desktops.
I don't use such a laptop for long battery life. Nor does anyone else I know. But the battery is still useful! Ever try moving your desktop from your living room to your bedroom then back 5 times fast? Or using your desktop from the sofa while watching TV? Yeah.
Also, my laptop in that chasis isn't that heavy and i'm quite a small person, so that's really no big deal. Sure I wouldn't want to carry it around all day, but it's NOT that kind of laptop.
Lastly, the bottom ventilation I find to be pretty important. Putting these laptops on a flat hard surface (read: no cloth!) greatly reduces heat and strain on the fans. There is a very small air path underneath it that is amazingly important. I also find I CAN put it on a cloth surface without serious heat problems if i put a cold/heat (you know, one of those gel packs, it need not be cold though) right underneath the graphics card area.
Having room for two hard drives with a SATA/raid controller, two optical drives, and four SODIMM (read: RAM) slots in my beast is just a nice plus too.
Oh yeah (sorry for the rambling, it's early). There ARE some serious downsides to this specific chasis that seems so popular. First it's plain ugly and the component layout is near retarded (most ports on mine plug in...upside down!). It just screams cheap high production taiwanese product. Most importantly, and something I find many laptops lack, is a good power connecter. There have been multiple reported problems both on the motherboard and adapter plug itself from most vendors who use this chasis (so it appears they mostly use the same power adapter too). Also the fans working with most of the heat are right by the power connection. Well this baby will put out some pretty hot air. Hot enough that it probably does some serious damage to your sperm count. Combine that with plastic cable and wire and possible laptop movement moving the wire around more to get a situation asking for the cable to die a slow and painful death.
With better thought and design put into the product, I could see such laptops being used alot more frequently. As it is I doubt many owners of one will buy another anytime soon and not just because of the large price tag. If you pay alot of money for a product, you expect everything to be near perfect (read: like a mac) and I have yet to see a laptop using this chasis be just that.
You have obviously never met a Japanese Killer Mole!
Us southerners don't have basements.
And attempting to run a computer in an attic isn't wise, even in the winter alot of the time (80s in december is not uncommon).
So where is a stereotypical southerner geek supposed to live?
Of course i'm just randomly talking out of my ass.
I believe the point of these widget development/runtime engines is to provide a method of developing/deploying simple easy-to-create applications. With a stressing on "easy to create".
Instead of having to write alot of C/C++ or Java code and worry about compatibility and lots of other issues, you can just (from my understanding) follow a method the engine outlines (in this case I believe primarily XML, maybe some javascript) and create a small very specific desktop application.
My cell phone is way cheaper than landline.
I rarely need to use a phone at all, and when I do, it's almost always on nights or weekends. For me a phone is only for emergencies (car break down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere?), buisness (server down at 4am? someone calls my cell to wake me up), and occasionally pleasure calls (calling people who don't know how to use a computer).
Thus two options have worked fine for me a) pre-paid in the past b) now I just had myself added to one of my relatives plans as an 'extra' family line. which is only like $5-10/month.
Then add how time is money. A cell phone means you get your calls when you need to get them, as the phone can always be with you. A landline is stuck in one place. If my server goes down and I had a landline and someone just left a message I might not get that message for another 8 hours! That's alot of money and unacceptable downtime.
No WAY a college student needs a landline.
Most college students I know only have cell phones or no phone at all (the latter being quite rare).
I know very few college students with a landline phone.
Now I do agree with the south not having alot of other options. Bellsouth is the defacto standard phone company if you want a landline down here. I mean sure, there are some other options, but who in the south is willing to pay a good bit more just to get away from one company? Not many.
what about bloggers and review sites and not entirely porn related sites that occasionally have links to or actual nude/pornographic images.
what about nudist webpages?
what about nude photography art?
'Sir, this is the FBI. You recently posted to foo.bloggerbar.com a pornographic image of your new baby boy. Because you posted this horrible pornographic image, I am sorry but we have no chance but to confiscate all evidence, including your child. Thanks for your cooperation in this matter of National Security in our efforts to Save the Children of Tomorrow.'
News doesn't have to be 'new information' as in 'never happened or reported before'. It can also just be a recent event/happening.
The story is perhaps everywhere because people can relate to it and are glad to see someone trying to strike back and want to help? Which is something worse all together because it means this is happening to A LOT of people.
Did you complain when you saw some dude strike back at a spammer? I doubt it, you probably applauded.
And no, I don't think your karma is going to explode unless some moderater nazis decide to just be rude!